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"Let's live together."
The first time it's said, Emma had been hopeful. Even though she'd an inkling those words were nothing but an empty alleviation amidst the abyss they’re in, she’d tried to put her trust in the tangible warmth of their intertwining hands. She'd allowed herself to be gullible, believing that each of them harbored the same wish. That they cared enough, sanguine enough, to beat a propitious path for that beautiful future.
But, alas, what she'd got in return?
One of them had donned his funeral robe with a smile, had taken the very proof of their connection to his grave, and disappeared from her life.
The other one had dared to end his role with a bang, with one lighter and a maniacal grin to boot.
Truly, what a farce.
How dared they....
There’s a fire of vengeance burning on the back of her mind, but she'd opted to put a lid on it. Temporarily, of course.
*
Because.
Because she's actually the one with compromise. Someone who dwelled in the immortality of childhood for those who had forsaken it.
"Let's live together."
The second time it's said, the words rolled sweetly on her tongue. They glided unbidden on its smooth surface, which was laced with poison and deceive. Indeed, the smile plastered on her face couldn’t be anymore genuine than the effulgent onslaught of summer's daystar.
For sure, who'd think it's a facade?
She talked about happiness while they’re surrounded by gores, blood, and hotchpotch of internal organs.
Her cajolery rang clear in the honor of the deaths, within the ruin where smokes and screams of both the innocents and the devils intermingled.
They’re of carnage and artifice.
Of mutilation, starvation and subterfuge.
In any other occasions, she'd question their sanity in entertaining a girl who spouted such idealistic remarks on that kind of situation.
Oh. Well, who's she kidding, though?
Norman is kind. Emma is cruel.
Personal risks? Grand sacrifices? How laughable, everything was picturesque under the guise of her 'kindness'―Of the otherwise the 'despair' lurking on the nook of their world. It's an escapism in its glory.
She'd learned to be disagreeable. To do great disservices with her acting skills. And to do away with guilt.
Entrapped them she did, with her luscious nectar: Numbing. Hoodwinking. So as to not raise suspicions. They'd just be none the wiser when the curtain was drawn.
When Neverland was no more, and the fairy dusts of Tinkerbell erased every chronicles in her soul, then all children, except one, would grow up.
Adventures were never far in between, nonetheless, for her, and only for her, time was finite.
Or, technically, she’s quiescent. Alone.
A hypocrite.
She didn’t grace them with a farewell.
She had no tolerance for tears, for heartbreaks, after one traumatic episode left her scarred, the wound festering until now, alongside with the anguish of never scratching a healing scab and a figment of imagination in the vacancy of her anchor and abandonment of self and everything else with it. She severed their ties with the golden of silence.
The red strings attached was cut by her own hand.
The horror was everlasting, but she's fleeting.
She's fine.
Yes. She's fine.
*
She wondered though:
If she were to cry, would he smile once again despite himself? She couldn’t forgive that. Not him. And most definitely not her eleven years old self who took it for granted.
"Let's live together."
The third time it's said, 【Emma】wouldn’t be there and forever more, never.
Emma. A selfish child beckoning fantasy and nightmares in equal measure. A beloved hero. A twisted villain.
Thus, her revenge...
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